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Reckling M, Döring TF, Bergkvist G, et al. Grain legume yields are as stable as other spring crops in long-term experiments across northern Europe. Agron Sustain Dev. 2018;38(6):63doi: 10.1007/s13593-018-0541-3.
Reckling, M., Döring, T. F., Bergkvist, G., Stoddard, F. L., Watson, C. A., Seddig, S., Chmielewski, F. M., & Bachinger, J. (2018). Grain legume yields are as stable as other spring crops in long-term experiments across northern Europe. Agronomy for sustainable development, 38(6), 63. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-018-0541-3
Reckling, Moritz, et al. "Grain legume yields are as stable as other spring crops in long-term experiments across northern Europe." Agronomy for sustainable development vol. 38,6 (2018): 63. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-018-0541-3
Reckling M, Döring TF, Bergkvist G, Stoddard FL, Watson CA, Seddig S, Chmielewski FM, Bachinger J. Grain legume yields are as stable as other spring crops in long-term experiments across northern Europe. Agron Sustain Dev. 2018;38(6):63. doi: 10.1007/s13593-018-0541-3. Epub 2018 Nov 02. PMID: 30873223; PMCID: PMC6390932.
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Agron Sustain Dev. 2018;38(6):63. doi: 10.1007/s13593-018-0541-3. Epub 2018 Nov 02.

Grain legume yields are as stable as other spring crops in long-term experiments across northern Europe.

Agronomy for sustainable development

Moritz Reckling, Thomas F Döring, Göran Bergkvist, Frederick L Stoddard, Christine A Watson, Sylvia Seddig, Frank-M Chmielewski, Johann Bachinger

Affiliations

  1. 1Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Eberswalder Str. 84, 15374 Müncheberg, Germany.
  2. 2Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden.
  3. 3Department of Agronomy and Crop Science, Humboldt-University of Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
  4. 4Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation, University of Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany.
  5. 5Department of Agricultural Sciences, Viikki Plant Science Centre, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland.
  6. 6Crop and Soil Systems, Scotland's Rural College, Aberdeen, AB21 9YA UK.
  7. Institute for Resistance Research and Stress Tolerance, Julius Kuehn Institute, 18190 Sanitz, Germany.

PMID: 30873223 PMCID: PMC6390932 DOI: 10.1007/s13593-018-0541-3

Abstract

Grain legumes produce high-quality protein for food and feed, and potentially contribute to sustainable cropping systems, but they are grown on only 1.5% of European arable land. Low temporal yield stability is one of the reasons held responsible for the low proportion of grain legumes, without sufficient quantitative evidence. The objective of this study was to compare the yield stability of grain legumes with other crop species in a northern European context and accounting for the effects of scale in the analysis and the data. To avoid aggregation biases in the yield data, we used data from long-term field experiments. The experiments included grain legumes (lupin, field pea, and faba bean), other broad-leaved crops, spring, and winter cereals. Experiments were conducted in the UK, Sweden, and Germany. To compare yield stability between grain legumes and other crops, we used a scale-adjusted yield stability indicator that accounts for the yield differences between crops following Taylor's Power Law. Here, we show that temporal yield instability of grain legumes (30%) was higher than that of autumn-sown cereals (19%), but lower than that of other spring-sown broad-leaved crops (35%), and only slightly greater than spring-sown cereals (27%). With the scale-adjusted yield stability indicator, we estimated 21% higher yield stability for grain legumes compared to a standard stability measure. These novel findings demonstrate that grain legume yields are as reliable as those of other spring-sown crops in major production systems of northern Europe, which could influence the current negative perception on grain legume cultivation. Initiatives are still needed to improve the crops agronomy to provide higher and more stable yields in future.

Keywords: Coefficient of variation; Pulses; Scaling; Taylor’s power law; Yield variability

Conflict of interest statement

Compliance with ethical standardsThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

References

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